I'm Jim Hayes. I'm a techie
entrepreneur who, with my wife and business partner,
Karen, started one of the world's first fiber optic test
equipment companies, Fotec, in 1981. Fotec was acquired by
Fluke Networks. I had also been involved in training
cabling and fiber optic technicians since 1982 through a
Fotec organization we called Fiber U. The Fotec and Fiber
U websites and all the training materials we created were
probably the most popular in communications cabling. In
1995, the instructors at Fiber U decided the industry
needed a professional society so we founded The
Fiber Optic Association.
Today I'm the President of The
Fiber Optic Association and Karen and I run The FOA
and VDV Works, a
consulting company. We've revived Lennie
Lightwave's Guide To Fiber Optics and Uncle
Ted's Guide To VDV Cabling on the web for
everyone who missed these highly-praised introductions to
fiber optics and structured cabling. Fiber
U has been adopted by FOA for their free online
web-based training. I
edit and/or write the FOA
textbooks on fiber optics and cabling (as well as a
couple of my own), write articles and columns on cabling
for many publications and serve as a contributing editor
to Electrical Contractor and IMSA Journal
magazines. I'm also a frequent speaker at seminars and
conventions to promote the FOA. I even still venture out
to do training, especially training instructors,
sometimes.

My
latest book - Delusional
Management - a combination
business management book and memoir.
After 50 years in high tech, mostly as an entrepreneur,
I've got lots of stories, mostly amusing, but also
instructive on what NOT to do when running high tech
companies.
Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions.
This website includes my
personal pages and links to those of my family.
Links
To More Pages
My
professional resume
My
writings
VDV
Works
VDV
Academy
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- I've always been involved
with photography, sports cars and sports car racing.
Before I became a professional "techie" I "wrenched" for
various teams and photographed many races. I've retired
from racing myself but maintain my interest in cars. I
also collect auto art and models - like this Dallaire
tether car from the 30s. And I still follow Astronomy!
Karen and I are art and architecture buffs and
frequently visit interesting sites. For example, we have
visited many of the famous - and not so well-known Frank
Lloyd Wright projects around the US.
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- My main interest today is
photography - documenting our interests and travel. I
have thousands of photos of racing, much from 60s era
sports car races that I'm still cataloging, putting online
and then giving them and much of my collection of auto
racing memorabilia to the Watkins
Glen racing library for preservation. I also am
"curator" of many images of 50's racing taken by Howard
Wolery, the high school teacher who got me
interested in both sports cars and photography. Like
most photographers,
- I abandoned film for
digital photography years ago. See the sitemap.
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- Karen and I enjoy travel,
especially nature trips around the world and local in in
our home in California. We've been to Egypt,
the Galapogas, Canada
(Grizzlies) Kenya,
UAE and Lebanon,
and whale watching in
Baja. And more!
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- Karen and I moved to
California in early 2003 from the suburbs of Boston to a
rural mountainside between LA and San Diego. Here's some
photos of the place we
bought which we called Food
Chain Farm, local animals and plants. In
2018, we sold the farm and moved to downtown Santa
Monica.
Links
To More Pages
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